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Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of Instagram is paying off as the social network taps the photo-sharing application's expertise in building mobile engagement on a shoestring. Still, founder Kevin Systrom says he'll soon have to find ways to pay his way by monetizing the service without alienating its 100 million users. "It's like living at home after college. There comes a time when you have to add to the pie. If Instagram is going to become what I want it to become, then it has to do that. It's gotta grow up," he says.

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Vanguard says it's running a decentralized social media marketing operation by drawing on talent already present within the company and giving people freedom to work on their own. "A measure of success for me is a team that can handle social on their own and doesn't depend on me to make every single decision," Vanguard's Allen Plummer said.

Birmingham, Ala., chef Chris Dupont opened his first restaurant with $7,000 in the 1990s and last month debuted Tau Poco with an opening budget of just under $13,000. He shares tips for opening an eatery on a tiny budget, starting with tuning out advice about all the things you must have to open and applying affordable upgrades to existing low-cost spaces. "Ultimately, you'll be graded on the food. Diners do not come back because you put in a $600,000 kitchen -- they’re coming to eat the food," he said.

Companies don't need huge R&D divisions to innovate, writes Michael Voellinger. All it takes is a small group of employees with a mandate to think creatively about the problems they face. "Innovation isn't all about an enormous budget or a room full of hackers. It's about the growing price tag for not experimenting -- a risk no one can afford," Voellinger writes.

Hollywood studios typically pour serious money into their social media campaigns, sometimes paying more than a dollar per "like" to create expensive social games and tricked-out campaign pages. To promote "The Hunger Games," Lionsgate's PR team took a different approach, mining the original novel to create a cheap but deep trove of social content. "They activated the core fan base from day one, fired them up and let them carry the message to their friends, which in turn grew the fan base," a rival studio marketer says.

Defying the skeptics, Instagram's photo-sharing service is booming, with 5 million users since its launch and accelerating growth. And upgrades are planned to spread Instagram's usefulness and appeal. "We want to give people the tools to tell the story of their lives in a visual way -- we're working hard on making those tools top-notch," says co-founder Kevin Systrom.